5 February 2008
Maputo — The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), which runs the Kariba Dam on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border, announced on Tuesday that it will indeed open one of the dam's floodgates - but not until 11 February.
The ZRA said it had taken this decision "due to the current heavy rainfall over the entire Zambezi Basin and also the expected continued rainfall". It warned that "more gates may be opened as necessary without further notice".
According to a source in the Mozambican government's relief agency, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC), this is likely to mean that Kariba will be releasing an extra 3,000 cubic metres of water a second into the Zambezi.
That water will take about nine days to flow down the Zambezi and reach the town of Marromeu, near the river delta. By far the most important economic undertaking in the Marromeu area is the sugar plantation and mill owned by the Sena Company. The plantation is protected by a dike, which resisted the major floods of 2001 and 2007.
But when the height of the Zambezi at Marromeu reaches eight metres, it will go over the top of the dike. There are fears that this might indeed happen.
Much will depend on how much of the surge from Kariba can be held in the Cahora Bassa lake. Over the past few days, the management of the Cahora Bassa dam has been seeking to attenuate the crisis on the lower Zambezi by reducing its own discharges.
According to a Tuesday release from the Mozambican National Water Board (DNA), at the end of January the Zambezi tributaries downstream from Cahora Bassa (of which the largest are the Luenha, the Revobue, the Luia and the Shire) were dumping about 10,000 cubic metres a second into the Zambezi.
Cahora Bassa responded by reducing its own discharges - even though around 11,000 cubic metres of water a second was entering the lake from Zambia and Zimbabwe. The DNA release said that currently the dam is releasing around 4,000 cubic metres a second - which means that over 60 per cent of the water from upstream is being retained in the lake.
Despite these efforts, the river at Marromeu, and further upstream at Caia, recorded on Monday the greatest flood peak of this rainy season.
The DNA says that it is monitoring the situation, and is "designing appropriate measures to mitigate the impact on Mozambique of the discharges from Kariba", in coordination with the Zambian, Zimbabwean and Malawian authorities, and with the secretariat of SADC (Southern African Development Community).
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